1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air-conditioner control interface device, an air conditioner, and an air-conditioner control system.
2. Description of the Related Art
When information on an air conditioner such as operating information and control information is output to an external device (such as a personal computer, a card key, a coin timer, and a general-purpose centralized controller), there is a case where externally output information is fixed when the air conditioner is designed to have a simple configuration. Furthermore, in order to increase information output to the external device, there is a case where the air conditioner is designed to meet a certain demand; for example, the air conditioner includes a plurality of external-device output units or changes output contents using a switch, a jumper or the like.
There are some air conditioners that automatically create a control program in response to each user's use environment and rewrite control information or the like (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-22248), and other types of air conditioners that rewrite data stored in an auxiliary storage device such as an electrically erasable programmable read only memory (EEPROM) using a wireless remote controller or a key switch (see, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H6-221653).
When the operating information or the like is input or output between the air conditioner and the external device, the air conditioner includes a function for this information input/output in one case and the information input/output is performed between the air conditioner and the external device via an air-conditioner control interface (an air-conditioner control interface device) in another case.
However, the conventional techniques have the following problems. When the air conditioner has a simplified configuration, input/output contents are limited. Meanwhile, for increasing output contents, the air conditioner needs to include a plurality of external-device output units, which makes the control board of the air conditioner or the air-conditioner control interface large in size. In addition, for changing the output contents, a plurality of switches or jumpers need to be provided on the control board of the air conditioner and on the board of the air-conditioner control interface. As a result, there is a problem in that the boards are disadvantageously made large and the manufacturing cost thereof increases. For suppressing the increase in the size of the boards and the increase in the manufacturing cost, input/output contents are fixed and a user cannot arbitrarily customize the input/output information. As a result, there is another problem in that the air conditioner is limited to certain applications and that control information created by a user or a service provider cannot be commonly used in a plurality of air conditioners. That is, the air conditioner has a poor scalability and cannot flexibly meet various needs of the user. Furthermore, if the input/output information is fixed, it is necessary to change software or hardware for the control board of the air conditioner and for the air-conditioner control interface whenever different information is input or output.
Furthermore, the methods disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-22248 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. H6-221653 require a technique of automatically creating a control program in response to the user's use environment or rewriting data stored in the auxiliary storage device such as the EEPROM by using a wireless remote controller or a key switch. As a result, there is a problem in that the manufacturing cost of the air-conditioner main body increases.